1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a document-management system and its control method which manages document files containing recorded characters, images, tables, etc., and more particularly to a document-management system and its control method which has the feature in the processing at the time of carrying out image formation and outputting the contents of the selected document.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a document-management system which manages document files containing recorded characters, images, tables, etc., is known. Such document-management system is constituted by a document-management server, a document-management client, an image-forming-job management server, and an image-forming device. With these devices, the document-management system is capable of performing various processings of editing, movement, deletion, and printing (image formation) to the documents stored in the document-management server according to a request which is sent from the document-management client.
When the document printing is performed in the document-management system, the file of the document which should be printed is selected on the operation screen of the document-management client indicating the document-management server, and the printing request to print the document file is sent. Then, the document file is converted into an intermediate file for printing, and this intermediate file is transmitted to the image-forming-job management server. The image-forming-job management server assigns the image-forming job to an appropriate image-forming device, and the printing of the intermediate file is carried out by the image-forming device. In the above-mentioned document-management system, the printing of a single file is usually performed at a time. Alternatively, the printing of multiple files may be performed at a time. Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2000-168166 discloses such a printing system which is capable of performing the printing of multiple files at a time.
Moreover, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2001-125757 discloses a printing system which is capable of converting two or more printing jobs, which are stacked in the printer, into a new single print job in accordance with instructions sent from the host device.
According to the printing systems described above, there is the advantage that a plurality of document files created by different application programs can be collectively printed out as a single document file. In the case of the printing system of Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2001-125757, the setting of the number of copies, the setting of the post-processing conditions, and the arrangement of the pages can also be modified to the document files after the printing request is sent.
However, in the case of the printing system of Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2000-168166, the intensive printing request has to be specified, in advance, at the time of sending the printing request. Moreover, in the case of the printing system of Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2001-125757, the modification to the document files after the sending of the printing request must be performed on the special editing menu that is separate from the printing request menu. Therefore, the operability of the conventional printing systems is not adequate for the operator to easily instruct the image formation and image output processing of the documents managed in the document-management system.